My return back from January's residency resulted in a head-long plunge into my enrichment project.
Initially, I had planned to create a literary journal for black and latino high schoolers in the Hartford county area. I had decided on a name, created flyers, submission guidelines, the whole nine. I created a list of all high schools, after-school programs and practically anything connected to minority high school students. And then I sent my material. I can't recall off the top of my head how many I sent an introduction letter to, but it was a lot. Sadly, I only received one submission!
Where one door closes, another opens. An article in the Hartford Un-Courant caught my eye. Two Rivers Magnet Middle School in East Hartford was looking for mentors in all areas, including authors so I sent the school my curriculum vita. The enrichment coordinator for Two Rivers immediately contacted me and expressed her enthusiasm for my participation but she wanted me to host a writer's group. I was hesistant. I knew my work hours and I had concerns about transportation for the students so she settled on me mentoring one student.
Mentoring the one student proved difficult. She didn't have daily access to the internet for on-line chats and e-mails. I had pitched it to Brian to allow me to substitute my mentoring in place of my initial proposal for my enrichment project but you know Brian. He always wants more. He suggested I host a writer's group! So I went back to the middle school, told them my initial idea and they flipped for it! We worked on a schedule that fit around my work hours and the school vowed to offer any resources necessary for the project.
The language arts teacher identified students with talent, from 6 - 8 grade and on my first meeting on January 11 I was surrounded by eight black and hispanic boisterous and sharp females. There's Jacinta, my shy 6th grader; Zoe, an 8th grader wise beyond her years; Maya, my 8th grade space cadet who doesn't take crap off of nobody; Sierra, another shy lady in 7th grade; Daniella, a chatterbox of a 7th grader; Jessina, a quiet storm of an 8th grader; Oksana, a know-it-all 7th grader with an attitude I constantly have to keep in check; and my favorite, Ariel, a 7th grader who's sharp as a tack who I have in mind to be my second-in-command.
The one thing that was glaringly apparently was there were no males! So I tasked the ladies to take the word to the street and find me some boys with an interest in writing and used Tupac (the rapper) as an example of urban poetry. Jacinta was the only one who came through for me but not as I had hoped! On the second meeting, Ryan showed up, a 6th grader of the caucasian persuasion, a mathematician with aspirations of being a writer! The enrichment coordinator freaked out, nervous about what the parents and the administration would say about Ryan being part of the group but I let my feelings be known that Ryan is welcomed to stay as long as he wants to, and to exclude him based on his color would set a bad example. She relented.
At the second meeting, the group brainstormed on what to call the magazine. Someone shouted out, "graffitti" based on the concept design for the front cover, a contribution from Ryan. Someone else shouted out, "how about Graffiteen? Now that's tight!" And so this is how Graffiteen was born. The magazine is slated for publication in mid-May and will contain prose, poetry, art, movie and book reviews and an astrology and Chinese zodiac page ( I believe this is the year of the Boar says the ladies and one gentleman in the group). The students will sell the magazines and whatever money they make will be turned over to the school to be used as production seed money for the next issue.
We are planning a field trip to see the movie "Freedom Writers" with Hilary Swank on Saturday. Our next meeting will be the election of officers (Associate Editor, Managing Editor, etc.) and the discussion of each student's writing projects ( assignments were given out at the last meeting). I've brought my 13 year old son to the last couple of meetings and he was impressed over how serious these students are about their writing. They are truly talented and were correctly identified and I have a feeling I've started something that will be great for them and their school.
I'll keep you posted on future developments!
Monday, January 29, 2007
Friday, January 26, 2007
OMGW, Thesis Deadlines
A couple of notes for students:
The syllabi for the Online Multigenre Workshops are up and ready for your review!
IMPORTANT THESIS NEWS:
The deadline for the completed thesis submission is May 1.
GRADUATION:
If you are a fourth-semester student and you have not yet submitted your Application for Graduation to the Office of Graduate Studies, please do it immediately!
The syllabi for the Online Multigenre Workshops are up and ready for your review!
IMPORTANT THESIS NEWS:
The deadline for submission of thesis proposals is February 15.
GRADUATION:
If you are a fourth-semester student and you have not yet submitted your Application for Graduation to the Office of Graduate Studies, please do it immediately!
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Poems By David Cappella [Who Is Among Poets & Writers March 10 At Fiddleheads]
David Cappella lives in the town of Manchester, CT. He is an Associate Professor of English at Central Connecticut State University. He has co-authored two books on the teaching of poetry with Baron Wormser: Teaching the Art of Poetry: The Moves (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2000) and A Surge of Language: Teaching Poetry Day to Day (Heinemann, 2004). He is the winner of the 2004 Bright Hill Press Poetry Chapbook Competition, of which the first poem was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He has published poems in The Connecticut Review, The Bryant Literary Review, Diner and other journals.
Cappella is one of several poets and writers who will be appearing Saturday, March 10, at Fiddleheads Natural Supermarket in Litchfield. Other poets and writers on the bill include Jim Scrimgeour, Tom Hazuka, Ravi Shankar and Elizabeth Thomas. Opening for the poets and writers will be a jazz combo made up of local teenagers.
Fiddleheads Market
Love like a stone
I have sunk to the bottom of my heart.
Like a stone picked up from an old gravel road,
tossed into a fast-flowing stream,
mired in river bottom mud.
The current that washes over me, perhaps
forever, washes me in regret.
I love a woman who does not love me.
You pick up a stone, sun-warm, dry
to the touch, from the gravel road.
You fling it into the rushing stream.
Changed forever, it lies below
the surface, irrevocably altered, but a stone
still, granite, intact, invisible as a soul.
I changed a stone the way love changed me.
The Walnut
Consider the walnut
its crenellation, its meat
like a miniature human brain
that you chew; a nut
that imitates a cerebellum.
Consider the flesh of the brain
which you will never see
except as splotches of color
on a CAT scan prior to diagnosis
of cancer, if you are diagnosed
with brain cancer, or are, instead,
told that your headaches,
stress related, can be controlled.
Consider how the flesh of the brain
responds to the positive news
that today you have not been told
that you will surely die,
though some people, a lucky few,
do, in fact, survive brain cancer
but not the daughter of a colleague
who withered away after months,
eighteen to be exact, of various treatments
and you had coffee with him,
her father, and watched him cry
every Friday between sips
over the fact that he would outlive
his darling, his beautiful darling,
only twenty-eight, and a nurse,
if you can believe so much in Fate.
Consider the softness of the brain exposed
how it was the spikes driven
into her head, the ones that shoot
streams of radioactive chemicals
to kill the tumor and the person, too.
He could not stop visualizing
the spikes, like a weird punk hairdo,
in his own brain. A type of crying, too.
Consider the walnut cracked open
two halves, broken, bicameral,
like consciousness is broken
when we cry, when we think
and feel simultaneously, when
we thank something called God
(whose brain we cannot envision)
that we are not dead, though
we can watch someone wish
he could die, could give his life
in place of his daughter's.
Consider the taste of the walnut
slightly bitter, not as bitter
as the father's view of life
at this moment, crying and
alone with Fate. The walnut
flesh softly breaks in your mouth,
the earthy tang deepens
as you chew the meat;
it sweetens slowly, you swallow,
instinctively reach for a glass
of Montepulciano to complement
the subtle, nutty taste, a combination
that soothes your brain, which,
had it been cracked open
and closely inspected,
would not look like meat
of a walnut at all, but would
look like a hardened mass of gray,
crenellated clay folds, inedible,
except to other animals, maybe,
though gourmands eat the brains
of certain ruminants, would taste
like nothing, which no doubt is
how the coffee tastes to the father
whose quiet tears have not stopped
and who stares straight at you
to ask the unanswerable, "Why?"
Cappella is one of several poets and writers who will be appearing Saturday, March 10, at Fiddleheads Natural Supermarket in Litchfield. Other poets and writers on the bill include Jim Scrimgeour, Tom Hazuka, Ravi Shankar and Elizabeth Thomas. Opening for the poets and writers will be a jazz combo made up of local teenagers.
Love like a stone
I have sunk to the bottom of my heart.
Like a stone picked up from an old gravel road,
tossed into a fast-flowing stream,
mired in river bottom mud.
The current that washes over me, perhaps
forever, washes me in regret.
I love a woman who does not love me.
You pick up a stone, sun-warm, dry
to the touch, from the gravel road.
You fling it into the rushing stream.
Changed forever, it lies below
the surface, irrevocably altered, but a stone
still, granite, intact, invisible as a soul.
I changed a stone the way love changed me.
The Walnut
Consider the walnut
its crenellation, its meat
like a miniature human brain
that you chew; a nut
that imitates a cerebellum.
Consider the flesh of the brain
which you will never see
except as splotches of color
on a CAT scan prior to diagnosis
of cancer, if you are diagnosed
with brain cancer, or are, instead,
told that your headaches,
stress related, can be controlled.
Consider how the flesh of the brain
responds to the positive news
that today you have not been told
that you will surely die,
though some people, a lucky few,
do, in fact, survive brain cancer
but not the daughter of a colleague
who withered away after months,
eighteen to be exact, of various treatments
and you had coffee with him,
her father, and watched him cry
every Friday between sips
over the fact that he would outlive
his darling, his beautiful darling,
only twenty-eight, and a nurse,
if you can believe so much in Fate.
Consider the softness of the brain exposed
how it was the spikes driven
into her head, the ones that shoot
streams of radioactive chemicals
to kill the tumor and the person, too.
He could not stop visualizing
the spikes, like a weird punk hairdo,
in his own brain. A type of crying, too.
Consider the walnut cracked open
two halves, broken, bicameral,
like consciousness is broken
when we cry, when we think
and feel simultaneously, when
we thank something called God
(whose brain we cannot envision)
that we are not dead, though
we can watch someone wish
he could die, could give his life
in place of his daughter's.
Consider the taste of the walnut
slightly bitter, not as bitter
as the father's view of life
at this moment, crying and
alone with Fate. The walnut
flesh softly breaks in your mouth,
the earthy tang deepens
as you chew the meat;
it sweetens slowly, you swallow,
instinctively reach for a glass
of Montepulciano to complement
the subtle, nutty taste, a combination
that soothes your brain, which,
had it been cracked open
and closely inspected,
would not look like meat
of a walnut at all, but would
look like a hardened mass of gray,
crenellated clay folds, inedible,
except to other animals, maybe,
though gourmands eat the brains
of certain ruminants, would taste
like nothing, which no doubt is
how the coffee tastes to the father
whose quiet tears have not stopped
and who stares straight at you
to ask the unanswerable, "Why?"
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Miranda Literary Magazine Winter 2007
Miranda Literary Magazine presents the winter issue filled with some great fiction, poetry, articles, and links. We've done away with the login and let Google track our statistics.
Click on the image and enjoy.
Happy winter from everyone at Miranda Literary Magazine.
Happy winter from everyone at Miranda Literary Magazine.
In honor of The State Of The Union Address...
I thought I'd post a link to the story I recently co-wrote with poet Daphne Gottlieb, which may be apropos.
Check out Low Resolution on the erotica journal Fishnet. (Content may not be safe for work.)
More about Daphne: http://www.daphnegottlieb.com
And me: http://www.mamatas.com
Check out Low Resolution on the erotica journal Fishnet. (Content may not be safe for work.)
More about Daphne: http://www.daphnegottlieb.com
And me: http://www.mamatas.com
Ridgefield Magazine Needs an Intern
Ridgefield Magazine (http://www.ridgefield-magazine.com) is looking for an intern for the Spring 2007 semester. This is an unpaid internship. If you are a second semester student in the program, this might be an arrangement that could be extended into your third (internship) semester. If you are interested, contact Prof. Abbey Zink ASAP: 203-837-8839.
Responsibilities include a wide variety of editorial tasks, including writing short articles, repurposing magazine articles for the web, and fact checking.
Responsibilities include a wide variety of editorial tasks, including writing short articles, repurposing magazine articles for the web, and fact checking.
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